Journal: International Studies Quarterly

Abbreviation

Int. stud. q.

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Journal Volumes

ISSN

0020-8833
1468-2478

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2016 - 201932020 - 20257
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Publications 1 - 10 of 10
  • Destroying Trust in Government: Effects of a Broken Pact among Colombian Ex-Combatants
    Item type: Journal Article
    Kreutz, Joakim; Nussio, Enzo (2019)
    International Studies Quarterly
    Mistrust between conflict parties after civil war is a major hurdle to sustainable peace. However, existing research focuses on elite interactions and has not examined the trust relationship between government and rank-and-file members of armed groups, despite their importance for postconflict stability. We use the unexpected decision of the Colombian government to extradite top-level former paramilitary leaders to the United States in 2008 to identify how a peace deal reversal influences ex-combatants’ trust in government. In theory, they may lose trust for instrumental reasons, if they suffer personal costs, or for normative reasons, if they think the government is failing its commitments. Using quasi-experimental survey evidence, we find that extradition decreases trust substantially among ex-paramilitaries, but not in a comparison group of ex-guerrillas not part of the same peace deal. Even though paramilitaries are seen as particularly opportunistic, our evidence suggests that normative rather than instrumentalist considerations led to trust erosion.
  • Environmental Concern Leads to Trade Skepticism on the Political Left and Right
    Item type: Journal Article
    Rudolph, Lukas; Quoß, Franziska; Buchs, Romain; et al. (2023)
    International Studies Quarterly
    The environmental implications of international trade appear to be associated with public backlash against trade liberalization and efforts at greening international trade. Because public support is essential to environmental and trade policy-making alike, we examine the trade-environment nexus from a public opinion perspective. We investigate whether negative attitudes toward trade are in fact fueled by concern over its environmental consequences. We argue that environmental concern affects how citizens evaluate the costs and benefits of trade, and that such evaluation is moderated by political ideology. The empirical analysis relies on a large representative survey and a population-based survey experiment in Switzerland, a small open economy. We show that environmental concern leads to decreasing appreciation of and support for international trade, with different manifestations of trade skepticism on the political left and right. This suggests (i) that policy-makers should focus more on greening global supply chains, and thus trade, if they wish to sustain public support for liberal international trade policy; and (ii) that the public follows informational cues on the environmental impacts of trade.
  • Selecting Partner Countries for Preferential Trade Agreements: Experimental Evidence from Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Vietnam
    Item type: Journal Article
    Spilker, Gabriele; Bernauer, Thomas; Umaña, Víctor (2016)
    International Studies Quarterly
  • The Logic of Ceasefires in Civil War
    Item type: Journal Article
    Clayton, Govinda Daniel; Sticher, Valerie (2021)
    International Studies Quarterly
    Ceasefires play a role in almost all civil war peace processes. Yet existing studies undertheorize the ways in which different logics drive the design of ceasefire agreements, and the effect this has on violence suspension. Building on bargaining theory and existing ceasefire literature, we identify different bargaining problems conflict parties face over the course of a conflict, and three classes of ceasefire design they use to address these problems. We argue that the effect of ceasefires is driven both by these underlying logics and by the provisions they contain. Building on the PA-X data to capture the provisions included within all written civil war ceasefires between 1990 and 2019, and using Uppsala Conflict Data Program georeferenced event data, we estimate models of ceasefire survival, with conflict deaths as the main measure of whether a ceasefire remains in place. We find that definitive ceasefires (i.e., agreements with demobilization and incompatibility provisions), followed by preliminary ceasefires (i.e., agreements with compliance mechanisms), are associated with longer periods of violence suspension than cessation of hostilities agreements that lack such provisions. We discuss the implications of our results for conflict parties and third parties seeking to facilitate the transition from war to peace. Waffenstillstände spielen in fast allen Bürgerkriegs-Friedensprozessen eine Rolle. Doch existierende Studien unterschätzen die Art und Weise, in der unterschiedliche Logiken die Gestaltung von Waffenstillstandsabkommen bestimmen und welche Auswirkungen diese auf die Aussetzung von Gewalt hat. In diesem International Studies Quarterly Artikel identifizieren die CSS Forscher Govinda Clayton und Valerie Sticher verschiedene Verhandlungsprobleme, mit denen Konfliktparteien im Verlauf eines Konflikts konfrontiert sind, und drei Klassen von Waffenstillstandskonzepten, die sie verwenden, um diese Probleme anzugehen. Sie argumentieren, dass die Wirkung von Waffenstillständen sowohl von dieser zugrunde liegenden Logik als auch von den darin enthaltenen Bestimmungen bestimmt wird. Les cessez-le-feu jouent un rôle dans pratiquement tous les processus de paix intervenant dans les guerres civiles. Pourtant, les études existantes sous-théorisent les manières dont différentes logiques orientent la conception des accords de cessez-le-feu et l'effet que cela a sur la suspension de la violence. Nous nous sommes appuyés sur la théorie de la négociation et sur la littérature existante sur les cessez-le-feu, et nous avons identifié différents problèmes de négociation auxquels les parties en conflit étaient confrontées au cours d'un conflit, ainsi que trois catégories de conception de cessez-le-feu auxquelles ces parties ont recours pour gérer ces problèmes. Nous soutenons que l'effet des cessez-le-feu est à la fois déterminé par ces logiques sous-jacentes et par les dispositions qu'ils contiennent. Nous avons exploité la base de données PA-X (base de données sur les accords de paix) pour capturer les dispositions incluses dans l'ensemble des cessez-le-feu de guerre civile rédigés entre 1990 et 2019, et en utilisant des données d’événements géoréférencées de l'UCDP (Upsala Conflict Data Program), nous sommes parvenus à estimer des modèles de survie de cessez-le-feu, les décès liés au conflit étant la principale mesure du maintien en place du cessez-le-feu. Nous avons constaté que les cessez-le-feu définitifs (c-à-d, les accords comprenant des dispositions de démobilisation et d'incompatibilité), suivis des cessez-le-feu préliminaires (c-à-d, les accords comprenant des mécanismes de conformité), étaient associés à de plus longues périodes de suspension de la violence que les accords de cessation des hostilités qui manquent de telles dispositions. Nous abordons les implications de nos résultats pour les parties en conflit et les tierces parties cherchant à faciliter la transition de la guerre à la paix. Los ceses al fuego desempeñan un papel en casi todos los procesos de paz de las guerras civiles. Sin embargo, los estudios no teorizan lo necesario acerca de las formas en que las diferentes lógicas impulsan el diseño de los acuerdos de cese al fuego, y el efecto que esto tiene en la suspensión de la violencia. Basándonos en la teoría de la negociación y en la bibliografía existente sobre los ceses al fuego, identificamos los diferentes problemas de negociación a los que se enfrentan las partes en conflicto en el transcurso del tal conflicto, y tres clases de diseño de cese al fuego que se utilizan para abordar estos problemas. Sostenemos que el efecto de los ceses al fuego están impulsados tanto por estas lógicas subyacentes como por las disposiciones que contienen. Con base en los datos de PA-X para capturar las disposiciones incluidas dentro de todos los ceses al fuego escritos entre 1990 y 2019, y utilizando los datos de eventos georreferenciados del Programa de datos sobre conflictos de Uppsala (Uppsala Conflict Data Program), estimamos modelos de supervivencia de los ceses al fuego, con las muertes en el conflicto como principal medida para saber si un cese al fuego sigue vigente. Encontramos que los ceses al fuego definitivos (es decir, los acuerdos con disposiciones de desmovilización e incompatibilidad), seguidos de los ceses al fuego preliminares (es decir, los acuerdos con mecanismos de cumplimiento), se asocian con períodos más largos de suspensión de la violencia en relación con los acuerdos de cese de las hostilidades que carecen de tales disposiciones. Debatimos las implicaciones de nuestros resultados para las partes del conflicto y los terceros que buscan facilitar la transición de la guerra a la paz.
  • Firms and Global Value Chains: Identifying Firms Multidimensional Trade Preferences
    Item type: Journal Article
    Kim, In Song; Milner, Helen V.; Bernauer, Thomas; et al. (2019)
    International Studies Quarterly
    Trade policy has become increasingly multidimensional. Current trade agreements not only address market access but also encompass rules and provisions related to flexibility of commitment, investment protection, and dispute settlement mechanisms. Yet, rigorous evidence about how interest groups evaluate each of these in relation to the others remains scarce. We develop a firm-level theoretical framework to explain how firms’ international operations affect their preferences on different trade policy measures. We experimentally evaluate preferences over multiple policy dimensions using a conjoint analysis on firms in Costa Rica. Notably, for many types of firms, the standard trade policy measures of yesteryear—tariffs and subsidies—are no longer their most important concerns. Instead, the degree of firms’ involvement in global value chains shapes their preferences. Multinational corporations care most about protection of their foreign investments. Those exporters who are not central to global supply networks most value strong dispute settlement procedures. Finally, we find that preferences over these policy dimensions are more likely to vary by firm than by industry, which calls into question the existing literature's focus on interindustry distinctions.
  • Trading Arguments: Opinion Updating in the Context of International Trade Agreements
    Item type: Journal Article
    Spilker, Gabriele; Nguyen, Quynh; Bernauer, Thomas (2020)
    International Studies Quarterly
    Public opinion can often become a key challenge to international cooperation efforts. In their attempt to garner support for their position, stakeholders fight for the hearts and minds of the public based on arguments about the consequences of different policy options. But to what extent do individuals’ preferences change when exposed to such information? And how does this depend on the information being congruent or contradictory to pre-existing preferences? We address these questions in the context of the negotiations on the potentially largest regional trade agreement in history: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Based on a two-waves-panel-survey-experiment fielded in Germany and the United States, we examine how individuals’ prior opinion influences the way they process new information. We argue that individuals’ existing priors about how they generally think about economic openness interact with new information to inform their opinion about the specific policy proposal at hand. Our experimental results show that while prior opinion constrains opinion updating to some degree, overall, citizens update their existing beliefs in line with new information. This updating process can even result in respondents changing their opinion, although only in one direction: namely to turn from a TTIP supporter to a TTIP opponent.
  • Breaking the Myth of Cyber Doom: Securitization and Normalization of Novel Threats
    Item type: Journal Article
    Gomez, Miguel Alberto; Whyte, Christopher (2021)
    International Studies Quarterly
    Do logic-of-the-domain explanations account for insecurity following cybersecurity incidents? In this International Studies Quarterly article, CSS' Miguel Alberto Gomez and Christopher Whyte demonstrate that repeated exposure to news of cybersecurity incidents does not cause panic and dread among publics. Rather, perceptions are shaped by embeddedness in digital society and the sense of control such that exposure mitigates negative emotions over time, normalizing novel threats. Moreover, assessments of digital threats towards the polity are grounded on personal threat sensitivity.
  • A New Era: Power in Partnership Peacekeeping
    Item type: Journal Article
    Schumann, Maurice P.; Bara, Corinne (2023)
    International Studies Quarterly
    UN blue helmets increasingly deploy in partnership with regional organizations and coalitions of states. While this development is hailed as a way out of geopolitical fragmentation and capacity overstretch, little is known about the effectiveness of these peacekeeping partnerships. In this article, CSS' Corinne Bara argues, in collaboration with Maurice P. Schumann, that UN and non-UN operations exercise different forms of power, which reinforce each other to reduce battle violence in active wars. If non-UN military operations actively engage in combat, the UN can focus on what it does best—employing its broad toolbox to coerce, induce, and persuade. The quantitative analysis of the authors published in International Studies Quarterly support these expectations.
  • The Curse of Coercive Mediation: The Instrumentalization of External Military Support in Peace Processes and the Breakdown of Imposed Agreements
    Item type: Journal Article
    Duursma , Allard; Bruker , Janek; Geier, Valentin (2025)
    International Studies Quarterly
    This article argues that third-party mediators who simultaneously provide external military support to a conflict party possess unique leverage to pressure both sides into peace negotiations and agreements. By threatening to increase, reduce, or withdraw such support, coercive mediators can compel parties to enter talks and sign settlements. However, these agreements are often fragile. The article identifies two mechanisms behind this fragility: (1) settlements are often artificial and reliant on sustained third-party involvement, and (2) parties may sign agreements to avoid losing support but resist implementing difficult provisions later when implementation becomes politically or militarily costly. The article tests this theory using Peace Observatory data on 6,277 negotiation rounds in armed conflicts from 1989 to 2023. The findings show that coercive mediation significantly increases the likelihood of both the initiation of formal negotiations and the conclusion of peace agreements. However, agreements reached through coercive mediation are substantially less durable. Two case studies on Angola (1989–1991) further illustrate how coercive leverage enabled short-term breakthroughs but contributed to the rapid breakdown of imposed settlements. Coercive mediation is thus a double-edged sword: effective in the short term, destabilizing in the long run.
  • Understanding Preferences over Borders
    Item type: Journal Article
    Lipps, Jana; Sczepanski, Ronja; Malet, Giorgio (2025)
    International Studies Quarterly
    The governance of international borders has evolved into a contentious issue of political competition along the cosmopolitan-nationalistic divide. Despite a strong polarization over the level of border openness, many border security policies are carried by a strong cross-partisan support base. This puzzle suggests that public preferences toward border security might be more context-dependent and prone to framing strategies than previously assumed. We develop a theoretical argument that explains under what conditions citizen preferences over borders are more likely to polarize or to converge, and we examine the effect of concrete border security measures, their justification, and the neighboring country to which they apply. We test our argument with a novel open-ended question on border mental associations and a conjoint experiment among 4,700 Germans. Results show that people attach very similar meanings to the concept of border, and that securitization frames and joint EU border guards are a first-rank choice leading to lower levels of polarization. Greater agreement is driven by left-leaning respondents shifting toward a more favorable view of border closure in response to such proposals. Building fences and migration-related justifications polarize the most across different subgroups. These results contribute to our understanding of the polarization potential of border policies and have important implications for the freedom-security trade-off.
Publications 1 - 10 of 10